Tom Cruise Confirms ‘Top Gun 2’ Is An Actual Movie That Is Real With First Set Photo

I don’t care about the photo I am about to show you. I could be sitting in a movie theater, having paid $15, after having attended a press junket where I interviewed Tom Cruise about this movie: I will still refuse to believe Top Gun 2(sometimes referred to as Top Gun: Maverick, although I’m honestly not sure if that’s the official title yet) is a real movie that actually exists. Until the very last closing credit rolls, I am operating under the assumption that this is actually an elaborate reboot of Punk’d designed to trick the entire American public.

With that out of the way, here are the facts: Last night, Tom Cruise tweeted the first photo from the set of Top Gun 2 (or “Punk’d Presents Top Gun 2”). In it, you can see his classic Top Gun “Maverick” helmet (that’s his call sign in the original film, in case you’ve grown up in an underground fallout shelter that didn’t get TNT for the last 35 years) along with a fighter jet in the background. And Cruise’s line about feeling the need for speed is now a tagline.

I mean I guess I take Tom Cruise at his word. If he says this is Day 1 of shooting a movie called Top Gun 2, then it is. Still: How did this happen? 30 years after the original movie, we’re going to make a sequel to one of the most ’80sish ’80s movies ever? I can’t even conceive of how that will work. (Original director Tony Scott died 2012; the sequel is being directed by Oblivion’s Joseph Kosinski.) Top Gun 2 opens in theaters on July 12, 2019.